It has before been said, we fancy, by that widely-known writer, "Anonymous," that listeners do not always hear any notable good of themselves. And Horace Townsend, in stopping to play the eaves-dropper, at least partially illustrated the saying. He heard a version of the Gulf of Mexico affair, from the lips of Captain Coles, calculated to make him, if he had any sensitiveness of nature and a spark of the fighting propensity, kill himself or the narrator. "I think I have heard enough of it," Margaret Hayley was saying, as Townsend came within hearing. "I really do not know that Miss Vanderlyn, though a pleasant girl enough, is of so much consequence that the whole house should go crazy over one of her little mishaps in riding." "A little mishap!" echoed the Captain. "Phew!--if I am not very much mistaken it was a _big_ mishap--just a hair's-breadth between saving her life and losing it!" "Is it possible?" said Mrs. Burton Hayley. "Why dear me, Captain Coles!--that is very interesting, especially if her being saved was providential. Did you hear the particulars, then?" "Shall we go in, mother?" asked Margaret. "No, my dear, not yet!" answered Mrs. Burton Hayley. "Captain Coles is just going to tell us what really happened to the young lady who was so mercifully spared. Go on, Captain, please." "Well, the story is a short one, though thrilling enough, egad!--to put into a romance!" said the Captain. "Young Waldron, that we met at the Profile, was one of the party, and he told me about it while you were dressing for supper. It appears that Miss Vanderlyn went up with her brother, and that something happened to his horse--it got lamed, or something,--so that he could not ride down with her. He was fool enough, then, to put her under the charge of that friend of yours, Margaret--" "Captain Coles, will you be kind enough to confine yourself to your story, if you must tell it, and leave _my_ name out of the question?" was the interruption of the young lady--no unpleasant one to the listener,--at that point of the narration. "Humph! I do not see that you need be so sensitive about it!" sneered back the Captain. "Well, then, not that friend of yours, but that man, who has not less than a dozen names and who lives in Philadelphia and Cincinnati and several other cities." "Yes, the man whose handkerchief you took out of his pocket the other night, in the ten-pin alley, to see whether his initials were correct!" again interrupted Margaret in a tone of voice not less decided than that of the other was taunting and arrogant.